Guitarists, including bass players, are known to utilize various effects while playing a guitar or bass. Such effects may include distortion, chorus, compressor, delay, etc. A discrete pedal may be designed to provide a single effect. For example, a guitarist may include any number of discrete pedals that are daisy chained together via a number of electrical cables such that each pedal provides a particular guitar effect. One of such discrete pedals may be configured to provide distortion, while another discrete pedal may provide chorus and so on. The types of effects used may vary based on the genre of music that is performed by the guitarist. Each pedal box is generally rectangular in nature and generally enclosed in a durable housing to withstand some degree of wear and tear. Each pedal box may be selectively turned on/off via a switch by the foot or hand of the guitarist. For example, guitarists may selectively turn on/off a pedal depending on the whether the desired effect is needed for a particular song that is being played. In most cases, the pedal is switched on/off by the guitarist through the use of their feet in order to avoid bending down with the guitar in their hands. This allows the guitarist the ability to play the song uninterrupted while turning on/off a various pedal.
Each pedal box is arranged to have a distinctive personality, such as for example a particular look/color so that they differ from one another to allow the guitarist the ability to distinguish between the same while playing on the stage. As one would expect, guitarists typically play in clubs, bars, etc. where lighting may be an issue. While these discrete effect pedals are commonly used by guitarists, one drawback is that they may be cumbersome for the guitarist to travel with while traveling to various gigs, rehearsals or studio sessions, particularly if the guitarist employs a large number of discrete pedals in his/her gear. In addition, “on the fly” re-configurability of effects chains may be difficult with these hardware based discrete pedals in a particular series/parallel sequence, unless the pedalboard incorporates a professional effects switching control system that is connected to all connected pedals.
Integrated multi-effects units are also available for a guitarist. Such units generally include a fixed number of effects that are integrated into a single unit that includes two or more pedals. These units may be less cumbersome to travel with since each unit incorporates a fixed number of effects within a single housing. The various fixed number of effects included within the integrated pedalboard may be selected via a combination of foot pedal switches and knob/buttons. One drawback of the integrated multi-effects unit is that additional effects cannot be added to the unit. The guitarist is generally stuck with the effects originally provided by the manufacturer. To add a new effect, the guitarist is required to either purchase a new multi-effects unit with additional effects or purchase one or more discrete pedals to daisy chain with the existing multi-effects unit. In addition, the fixed effects in the multi-effects unit may typically have fixed signal chain configurations.
The user interface to such multi-effects units are generally small and cryptic, often utilizing an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs), or other a limited number of alpha-numeric characters to indicate preset names, numbers, parameter types and values. In addition, these multi-effects units may utilize one or more small liquid crystal display (LCD) screens, such as a graphical LCD screen to attempt to provide a visual representation of effects chains. There may be cost a disadvantage in attempting to incorporate larger color LCD screens into a multi-effects unit.